image hospi-table

Typical Hangover: We all know about the usual type of hangover: alcohol induced, barf-y, just want to eat cheesy hamburgers and drink coke, sleep ’til noon, down 30 Ibuprofen, and generally feel like a whole bunch of ass.

Emotional Hangover  I’ve heard about this one in recent years. Have you heard of this (or experienced one)? Emotional Hangovers are typically preceded with a bunch of fighting, then crying, then thoughts that everything is going wrong, life is terrible, and it’s probably never going to get better, ever, really probably never ever, and then most likely more crying because, why not? Then, you wake up with puffy, red, tear-stained eyes, and re-live the past night/day and you’re just so SO freaking glad it’s over. Life generally starts to look a whole lot better but you still feel achy and like crap from the emotional toll the previous night/day took. Emo living at its finest? Possibly.

Spending Hangover: I used to get these all the time, but I’d ignore them because if you ignore something it doesn’t exist, right? I think this “Spending Hangover” feeling is more commonly known as Buyer’s Remorse and these days the Spending Hangovers tend to happen after vacations (even small ones) and they’re a lot harder to shake. I spent so much time telling myself “no” during the Spending Fast and Spending Diet that to spend money now gets me feeling icky quicky (groan. i know. had to though). Back when I was in the thick of building up my debt I’d go to Forever 21 and try on everything that caught my eye and then, naturally, I would buy ALL of it. Quantity over quality seemed to be my goal/motto. I created a whole lotta debt by spending like that. It’d get the clothes home and feel bad about it for a minute and then I easily let it go out of my mind. Now, feeling like crap after spending is not as easy to ignore. The spending threshold has been lowered to a more reasonable level and it’s more in the realm of what “normal” spenders would feel guilty about spending. Spending wildly now is out of character for me and, also, um, if I do have a lapse and slip back into my old-way there’s (thank god) these instant erasers… receipts! My purchasing offenders end up going right back where they came from and once the money is back in my account I end up feeling so much better.

All of these three different hangover types start with over-indulgence and end with feeling like crap soon after. I do what I can to avoid every one of these, and even though balance totally isn’t my thing I think that’s the key in avoiding these bad boys.

What do you think? Do Spending Hangovers exist? And, if you’ve experienced one what was it like and did you do something to fix it? 

Tweet